Having recently divulged the information that Coldplay only intend to make 12 albums in total, the pressure is on for Chris Martin’s band to ramp up for a big finish. Yet having become one of the biggest bands on the planet since their 2000 debut Parachutes, their 10th record lands with more of a smothered thud than a bang-crash-wallop.
Moon Music? It’s a big title but you wouldn’t bet against Coldplay finding some way to become the first band to play on a heavenly body. In fact, Celestial Music may have made a more apt title, with references to angels, heaven and messages from above strewn throughout the tracklist.
This is their “Hollywood blockbuster” album: officially one of the most expensive of all time (thanks to a £35 million advance) and with an enormous cast of engineers and players headed up by pop supremo Max Martin as producer. The fact that both Nile Rodgers’ and Brian Eno’s contributions are not even worthy of a mention on the press release says it all.
Despite their admirable efforts to reduce CO2 emissions and donate 10 per cent of their touring profits to good causes, it would be all too easy to approach this album with cynicism – even if it feels a little like kicking a puppy. The problem is that as Coldplay’s global fame has grown, so too has their mawkish sincerity and it has undoubtedly come at the expense of their musical output. Moon Music is no different: on the opening track, Martin explains how he’s “trying to trust in a world full of love” and on its idealistic closer One World, he chants how “In the end, it’s just love”.
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In-between are a plethora of saccharine, superficial songs about relationships (All My Love, feelslikeimfallinginlove), self-belief anthems (iAAM, which stands for I Am a Mountain) and a feeble effort at a protest song (We Pray). Be warned: there is also a song that uses a rainbow emoji as its title (apparently called Alien Hits/Alien Radio), which is as painfully pretentious as it sounds.
As greige as much of Moon Music is, there is some redemption in the form of danceable pop song Good Feelings, featuring young Nigerian artist Arya Starr, while Jupiter strips away the bells and whistles for a sweetly-strummed acoustic tune about an isolated LGBT girl, with its earnest refrain of “I love who I love”.
Overall, though, it sounds like another album that Coldplay made with stadiums in mind; surface-level lyrics for instant connections and mass singalongs, rather than one with depth and nuance. There’s two albums left to pull back some indie credibility. Can they do it? You suspect that Martin and his bandmates are long past caring.
